The great PokerStars vs partypoker war of 2018
Will the partypoker $20 million event dethrone the WCOOP Main Event? Which tourney will the players look forward to the most?
It’s getting a bit silly now…
partypoker have had a stellar year, one which saw them really establish themselves as a provider of big online MTTs with PowerFest and online MILLIONS, but even more so as a live tour where I have argued they were the best value big buy-in tour of 2017.
It looked like PokerStars had played the ultimate trump card when they announced a $25,000 High Roller with $1 million added to first and over 300 freeroll qualifiers. How could partypoker beat that? Well, they possibly have, with the announcement of a $20 million guaranteed online tournament (many packages for which will be given away for free).
The biggest online MTT in history
This not only would make it the biggest online MTT and biggest online prize in poker history by a large degree (The WCOOP Main Event in 2010 holds that title right now with a $12,215,000 prize pool and $2,278,097.50 first prize), it would also make the 20th biggest tournament in poker history, full stop. And, it is worth mentioning, bigger than any live or online PokerStars event.
If my own personal prediction for nearly 1,000 total runners comes close, the PSPC could still beat this online event in that respect, but either way this is a staggering landmark event for online poker. Just as PokerStars are essentially adding $9 million to their event, I suspect partypoker are expecting to miss the guarantee and write off several million dollars in order to stage an event that would essentially dethrone the WCOOP Main Event as the ‘Main Event’ of online poker.
Don’t let anyone ever tell you that competition is bad. First partypoker establish a brilliant value live tour, so PokerStars go nuclear with a $9 million added event, so partypoker one up them with a $20 million guaranteed online event. 2018 is going to be a very exciting year, especially as we see PokerStars contemplate their next move (Something special for SCOOP or WCOOP maybe?).
What will excite the poker world more?
What is really interesting is what event the poker public will be more attracted to, because it’s not self evident. The partypoker event will be a watershed moment in online poker history and maybe the biggest overlay ever seen on the virtual felt. The PokerStars event is much more of a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience that comes close to the actual Main Event in terms of potential prestige.
The qualification options are interesting too and I plan to review them in more detail next year. PokerStars are giving winners of marquee events packages and also hundreds of people will get them randomly in All In Shootouts. Thus far partypoker appear to be giving them to online MTT leaderboard finalists and anyone who final tables their big live events. This matches the current ethos of both sites quite well, with PokerStars leaning more towards variable rewards and recreational players, and party preferring to reward skill and volume. I’d argue that makes the PokerStars event ‘softer’ and the partypoker event ‘fairer’, both of which are good things for different reasons.
The dumbest thing the poker community could do right now is get tribal and feel like they have to side with one site over the other. It’s a cliché but the real winners here will be the entire poker community, so start trying to qualify for both these events, and wait with bated breath to see which poker room makes the next big announcement.
Which event excites you the most? Let us know in the comments
